I absolutely love teaching writing in kindergarten. When they walk in the door, most kids know how to write their names and some can draw recognizable pictures. By the time the leave kindergarten, they are authors! Today's writing lesson was encouraging kids to add details to their stories. If you tell a student to go back to their work and add more detail, they will usually look at you with a blank stare. They really don't know what that means.
We started this lesson a few days ago. I prompted the kids to write about something they have at home. I wrote about my rabbit that lives at my house. Today, I re-read my story to the class and told the class that their job was to say, "Tell me more." When they said that, I took a second to think and then I kept going with my story and told them all about how my bunny hops around the house and that she actually likes baths. I passed the kids' papers back to them and partnered them up. With their partners, their job was to read their current story and then encourage their partner to, "Tell me more."
Here is an example of a student who had done a nice picture with a label and a speech bubble. His initial sentence was, "I have a lightsaber." When his partner prompted him tell him more, he added, "I like my lightsaber. I like to play with it. The end." The sentence he added directly connected to his speech bubble.
In the next example, the student wrote, "I have a bunny." After some prompting to tell me more, she added. "It was at Christmas. I was excited." I loved this one because she added an emotion to her writing.
As you can see, our kindergartners are become excellent authors! If you are writing or your child is telling a story at home, try prompting them with, "Tell me more!" It's a great way to encourage language development and get kids to add details to their stories.
Happy story telling!
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